Harden Up

We don’t have a grief problem.
We have an empathy problem.

This podcast lives in the moments no one prepares you for—
the quiet, devastating spaces where love and loss exist at the same time.

Especially when it comes to the animals who become part of our everyday lives.

Here, we talk about grief honestly.
Without rushing it. Without softening it. Without telling you to “harden up.”

Because too many people are left feeling like their grief is too much…
when really, they were just never given the space to feel it.

If you’ve ever been told “it’s just a pet”…
If you’ve ever questioned your own emotions…
If you’ve ever had to say goodbye and felt completely alone in it—

you’re not the problem.

This is a space where grief isn’t minimized.
It’s witnessed. Held. Understood.

You don’t need to be stronger.
You need to be supported.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Let me say something most people won't. If you tell someone or not when they're grieving, you're not helping them. You're avoiding them. Because their pain makes you uncomfortable. So instead of sitting in it, you try to shut it down. And that's why so many people are grieving alone. There's something I need to say, and I'm not going to soften it. Stop telling people to harden up. Because when someone is grieving, that phrase doesn't make them stronger. It makes them quieter. We've created this unspoken rule around grief. You're allowed to feel it, but not too much. You're allowed to cry, but not for too long. You're allowed to love deeply. But when that love ends, you better pull it together. And if you don't, people start getting uncomfortable. They shift in their seats. They change the subject. They offer advice you didn't ask for. Be strong. You knew this was coming. It's just a pet. Let me translate that for you. What they're really saying is, your pain is making me uncomfortable, so I need you to make it smaller. I want to talk about this. Honestly. Because I've been on the receiving end of it. When Rita died, I didn't just lose her. I lost the illusion that people know how to sit with grief. Instead of being met with space, I was met with expectation. I was told, if you're going to be a pet death doula, you better harden up. Harden up? As if the goal is to feel less. As if the answer to loss is distance. As if love is something you're supposed to control so it doesn't hurt as much when it's gone. But here's the truth: no one wants to say out loud. If I stop feeling this, I shouldn't be doing this work at all. Because this work, being present at the end of an animal's life, isn't about being unaffected. It's about being there. Fully. It's about sitting in a moment where someone's entire world is quietly coming to an end and not looking away. People don't need someone who has numbed themselves to death. They need someone who can feel it and stay anyway. There's a scene in Old Yeller that almost everyone remembers. A boy, his dog, and a walk into the woods. People cry every time they watch it, and no one says, wow, he should have handled that better. Because we understand something in that moment that we forget in real life. Love is supposed to hurt when it ends. That pain is not weakness, it's proof that something real existed. So why, when it's real, do we try to silence it? Why do we tell people to be strong when what they actually need is permission to fall apart? Here's the part that might be hard to hear. People don't tell you to harden up because it helps you. They say it because it helps them. It helps them avoid your pain. It helps them avoid their own. It helps them stay comfortable in a moment that was never meant to be comfortable. But when you're the one grieving, that lines differently. It makes you feel alone even when you're not. You're not the problem. You're responding exactly the way someone does when they've loved deeply and lost something that mattered. And if we're talking about animals, let's stop minimizing that too. Losing an animal isn't just losing a pet. It's losing a present that was once woven into your everyday life. It's losing the one who greeted you at the door, sat beside you in silence, loved you without conditions or expectations. That's not small. That's everything. So when someone is standing in that moment, they don't need correction, they don't need perspective, they don't need to be told to toughen up. They need someone to sit beside them and say, This hurts, and I'm here. That's what I do. Not by hardening, but by staying, by holding space when things feel unbearable, by not rushing people through something that has no timeline, by letting grief be what it actually is. Love with nowhere to go. If you're listening to this right now and you're in it, or you know it's coming, I want you to hear this clearly. There is nothing wrong with how much this hurts. There is nothing weak about your grief. There is nothing excessive about your love. And if the people around you don't know how to sit with that, then you deserve to be in a space where someone does. Because the end of a life is not just an ending, it's a moment that deserves to be witnessed, held, honored, not rushed, not silenced, not hardened. Just felt. And if I'm the one beside you in that moment, I won't look away. Here's the truth: most people won't say out loud. We don't have a grief problem. We have an empathy problem. We've raised people who would rather silence emotion than learn how to sit with it. Who would rather fix it, rush it, or minimize it than actually witness it. And that's why so many people are grieving alone. So if you've ever been told to harden up, I want you to remember this. You don't need to feel less. The world needs to feel more. And if that makes people uncomfortable, good. Because maybe it's time we stop protecting comfort and start protecting people. And if you've ever find yourself in that moment where everything you love is slipping away, don't stand beside someone who tells you to be stronger. Stand beside someone who's strong enough to stay.